| ; |
The battle of Naseby, fought in June,
1645, had completely changed the generalcourse of events The King having
become a prisoner in the hands of the Scots, Ormonde assumed responsibility
and offered his Peace. It was too late for the Irish soldiers to be of
any use to Charles, and the fact that he had asked for them had only hardened
the feeling of his English subjects against him. The offered Peace of
Ormonde was eagerly welcomed by the Confederates, who saw their funds
depleted, the soldiery dispersed over the country to find sustenance as
best they could, the towns refusing obedience, and, after years of alternate
wars and cessations, no progress whatever made. The French approved the
Peace, the country needed it, and it was the only hope for the King. All
these patriotic arguments were laid by the representatives of the people
before the Nuncio, but on him they had no effect whatever. He summoned
a meeting of prelates, clergy, and heads of religious orders to Waterford
and solemnly denounced the Peace, backing up his condemnation by threats
of excommunication against all who adhered to it. Such tactics had been
already tried. When Ormonde had visited his own city of Kilkenny he found
all the churches closed by the interdict of the Bishop of Ossory. He said
he found it strange that the Irish, having fought so long for the exercise
of their religion openly in the churches, should now, when they had gained
leave to have them open, shut themselves out of them. But the Nuncio's
threat was not without effect, as Preston was to find at a later date,
when he had to obey the Nuncio's commands because "his army was not
excommunication proof." [1]
[1] Bellings, History of the Confederate Wars, in J. Lodge, op. cit.,
ii, 422.
During the past three years the country had been in a continual state
of turmoil, from which even the truces gave only a partial relief. Loose
men, as well as armies, were marching up and down, living on the inhabitants,
and committing acts of destruction. It was the sight of his house burning
as he passed it that decided Lord Castlehaven, whom the Lords Justices
would have hung out of hand as a Catholic royalist, to throw in his lot
with the Confederates, in the hope of regaining order in the country.
He was appointed general of horse under Preston, and served with him at
Birr and Ross But he was no general; nor would he serve loyally either
with Preston in the south or with Antrim in the north. The jealousy of
the Confederates led them into the fatal error of appointing Castlehaven,
instead of Owen Roe, as general in Ulster at a council at which Owen Roe
was present;[2] and though O'Neill made shift to congratulate Castlehaven
on his appointment it is little wonder that he failed to co-operate with
an officer whose "pigmaeian body" was oftenest seen "galloping
away on his horse at the moment of advance, though pursued by none,"
while his followers, imitating their general, "made the best use
they could of their spurs."
[2] Castlehaven, Memoirs (1815), pp. 46, seq. Castlehaven, Lord Audley,
became the third earl. As a boy he was obliged to appeal to the King for
protection against his father, who was eventually executed for cruelty
to his own family and for his vicious life.
From his Ulster haunts, where his own troops were out among the 'creaghts,'
Owen impatiently watched Castlehaven and Inchiquin "going up and
down the country, without acting any the least service," but eating
up the provisions and money that would have enabled him to hold together
his army for a sudden blow. But the blow fell at last, when in June, 1646,
he smashed the Scottish forces under Monroe at the battle of Benburb,
and prevented the intended junction of the Scottish army marching south
into Leinster from Carrickfergus with that of the forces under Monroe's
brother coming up to join it from Coleraine. Crossing the Blackwater,
O'Neill slipped in between the two armies and awaited them at Benburb.
All day long he skirmished, and it was only at sundown that, calling his
staff around him and pointing to the enemy's centre, which he had manoeuvred
into a closed position on the opposite hill, he said, "Gentlemen,
in a few minutes we shall be there. Pass the word along the line, Sancta
Maria; and in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, charge." The
men rushed forward, armed only with pikes; they "could not contain
themselves like peaceable men," but swept through the ranks and captured
the guns. The patient training of Owen Roe had its reward. Monroe's troops
fought hard; his cavalry charged the Irish foot, but they advanced steadily
"in most excellent order," and fell upon the Scots, annihilating
their fine army. Over three thousand were left dead on the field, and
all the baggage fell into O'Neill's hands. Twenty-one officers were made
prisoners, and Monroe escaped, leaving his cloak, sword, and wig behind
him. Monroe, in his report, could only ruefully conjecture that "the
Lord of Hosts had a controversy with us to rub shame on our faces."[3]
[3] Gilbert has published five contemporary accounts of the battle of
Benburb, Contemporary History, i, 110-116; 676-686. See also Carte, Ormond,
iii, 249-251 ; Reid, History of the Presbyterians, ii, 26-30.
Until the arrival of Cromwell the Scots made little fresh effort; they
were practically crushed by the rout of their army, ten regiments of infantry
and fifteen companies of horse having been wiped out by Owen's men. Forty
flags and the great standard were captured and carried in triumph by the
victorious general to Kilkenny, whence they were transmitted to Rome by
the Nuncio, the Pope acknowledging the trophies by sending to O'Neill
the sword of Tyrone, which many of his followers took as a sign that Owen
aspired not only to be the acknowledged representative of his family,
but to the crown of Ireland. There is little reason to think that this
was more than a rumour; he knew his world too well. But even this victory,
worthy of the general's training in "that Vulcanian forge" the
wars of Flanders, brought no termination to the strife. Owen had no means
of following up his success; he was forced to turn his army adrift in
the central counties to find sustenance as best they could, and they marched
southward, ravaging as they went. Even the Nuncio declared that "the
Ulstermen, though good Catholics, were barbarous enough by nature"
and that "no Tartars ever committed worse ravages than those of O'Neill's
men." But the Nuncio depended solely on O'Neill to carry out his
designs and at this moment of crisis he applied all his efforts to patching
up a truce between O'Neill and Preston, as he had successfully brought
about the alliance between Owen and Sir Phelim which had resulted in the
victory of Benburb.
In one thing Owen agreed heartily with the Nuncio; neither of them approved
of the Cessation or of the Peace. Though he had rigorously observed the
truce when it was proclaimed, it disturbed his plans and robbed him of
the fruits of victory. "It were better for us to have absolute wars
than this corrupted Cessation" he had exclaimed when he heard of
the Ormonde Peace in April 1646, and he was quite ready to fall in with
Rinuccini's project of laying siege to Dublin, even though it involved
a temporary alliance with Preston, his hated rival. People said that the
two captains could never come together without something untoward occurring.
But on the other hand there was the fear of exasperating Preston if O'Neill
were called upon to take his place as leader in Leinster, and of his defection
to the opposite party; and defections, of which that of Inchiquin was
the most surprising, had become too common recently to be ignored. Preston
was in Connacht, carrying on a campaign against Coote and the Scots, in
conjunction with the Marquis of Clanricarde, and though he had proclaimed
the Peace with salvos of artillery and sworn to Clanricarde to support
it, he now went over to the clerical party, carried his forces to Kilkenny
and joined O'Neill. But Preston was playing his game with all parties.
Probably it was with his connivance that Ormonde slipped past the army
and regained Dublin, and the old irreconcilable differences between the
rival generals were in constant danger of breaking out with renewed fury,
each army believing that it was being betrayed by the other. From Lucan,
not far from Dublin, they sent terms to Ormonde demanding the surrender
of the chief towns of Leinster, including Dublin and Drogheda, into their
hands to hold for the King. Ormonde gained time by asking in whose name
they spoke, a question so perplexing that they could find no answer to
it.
Meanwhile, the Nuncio felt in a position to govern the country; he elected
a council, retired to a manor house in Kildare then in possession of a
Father Nugent, Provincial of the Jesuits, who appointed himself master
of the commissariat to the army, and projected the capture of Dublin.
He then appeared before the General Assembly, and having adjured them
to act in concert and entirely reject the "unhappy Peace" he
retired to his palace, having "concluded his dictatorship in the
Roman manner, leaving the house to gnaw the bone he had cast among them."[4]
He called on all civil and military officers to withdraw from "the
late Supreme Council," whose longing for peace he was unable to understand.
Rinuccini's objects were, in fact, different from those of the people
among whom he had come as a saviour. A man of rigid and narrow views,
pure in life and a scholar rather than a politician, his one aim was the
advancement of the Church he served. He looked on his mission to Ireland
as a crusade to rescue from their bonds a people whom he believed to be
persecuted, and to restore to them the outward pomps of processions and
ceremonies which had been denied to them since the Reformation. The full
restitution of the Catholic ceremonial, as it was carried out in Spain
and Italy, he looked upon as a first step to the recovery of England for
Catholicism; for to Rinuccini, as to Continental politicians in all ages,
Ireland was but the gateway to the greater prize.[5] To support the Catholic
cause and to stem the inroads of Puritan and Presbyterian power were his
main aims, with the restoration of discipline in the Church and among
the clergy and regulars. Of any sympathy with national aims, such as was
felt by Owen Roe, he knew nothing; the church and not the nation was the
object which he had always in mind.
[4] Bellings, History of the Confederate Wars, in J. Lodge, op. cit.,
ii, 429.
[5] Rinuccini, Embassy, p. 362.
The actual condition of things which he found on his arrival in the country
was totally different from that which he had expected.[6] Desire for a
reformation in the Church was non-existent, even among the clergy and
bishops. The old bishops, long accustomed to celebrate in secret "without
trouble or interference," officiating as ordinary priests in the
houses of the people, "made little account of the splendour and grandeur
of religion," dreading rather than welcoming it on the ground of
expense and quite willing to save the substance of the faith without drawing
down any difficulties upon themselves by what they had come to look upon
as unnecessary publicity. Still less were the Regulars, as men accustomed
to live in the houses of the gentry and to take an interest in public
affairs, disposed to don again the habit of their Orders and to return
to the strict rules of monastic life. "To enjoy with full liberty
all their privileges while not restricted to their convents and to formal
obedience," appeared to many of them infinitely preferable to seclusion
from all the affairs of their country. A few of the younger men were of
a different opinion, but the laity, as a rule, were content with the free
exercise of the Catholic rites at home, and "considered it superfluous
and unjust to ask for more."[7] Against this lethargy, which he found
alike in industry and religion, Rinuccini found it hard to contend.
[6] Ibid., pp. 253-256, 492-494.
[7] "Report on the State of Ireland, March 1, 1646," ibid.,
pp. 134, 141-144.
In Dublin, the inhabitants were terror-stricken by the approach of the
Ulster and Leinster armies, and there was no food and little ammunition
in the city. Nevertheless, they pledged themselves to stand by Ormonde,
and the Catholic clergy bound themselves to hold for the King in spite
of any excommunication that might be launched against them by the Nuncio.
Outside, there were now only two parties with any power, that of the Nuncio,
or purely Church party, supported for the moment by the combined armies,
and that of the Puritans, which had for some time back been making rapid
strides in various parts of the country. Inchiquin, piqued that the Presidency
of Munster had been bestowed on Lord Portland, had declared himself on
the side of the Parliament, and gained from them the title denied him
by the King. Descended from a pure Irish regal stock, this representative
of the O'Briens now became known as Murrough of the Burnings (Murchadh
na d-toithean) on account of his terrible depredations in the south. He
stormed and sacked Cashel, killing priests and laity, even those who had
taken refuge under the altar of the Cathedral. On his revolt in 1644 he
had ordered all the Irish out of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale. At the Abbey
of Adare, held by the rebels, four friars were burned. He soon got the
chief cities and castles of the south into his hands, and the country
was tormented by the troops of Inchiquin and Castlehaven wasting and burning
on the one side and those of Lord Broghill on the other. It became a question
with Ormonde to which of these parties he should deliver up the authority
he was no longer able to support.
The Confederates were helpless, and were preparing missions to France,
Spain, and Rome not only to beg for help, but to offer a Protectorate
to whoever would take it; while in the West, Galway was carrying on a
lengthy correspondence with the Duke of Lorraine for the same purpose.[8]
The Council of State in Dublin, long accustomed to intrigue on the side
of the English Parliament, now urged an accommodation with it; the King
was a prisoner in its hands and unable to send any assistance, and at
this juncture he sent a message to Ormonde, possibly extracted by force,
to advise him, if he had to leave the country, to place Dublin in the
hands of the English Parliament rather than in the hands of the Irish
clerical party. Ormonde's own inclinations led him in the same direction;
he had always been ready to treat with the Confederates, but his Protestantism
forbade him to hand the country over to the Nuncio's now weakened authority.
Even still he and O'Neill were ready to treat, but the Confederates refused
any agreement and on June 17, 1647, Ormonde delivered up Dublin and the
garrisons of the royal towns to Commissioners of the Parliament, and crossed
to London, where he had an interview with Charles I at Hampton Court.
The King approved his action, hoping still against hope that he would
once more return to power and recover his control of the army. But at
the end of six months, on the committal of the King to Carisbrooke Castle,
Ormonde realized the peril of his position and slipped quietly away to
France, where he joined the Queen and her son at St Germain, and took
his part in the intrigues always being carried on by the agents of Henrietta
Maria on behalf of her husband and of her son, the future Charles II.
[8] See their letters in Borlase, History of the Rebellion, pp. 174-177.
Their Protector was to hold for "our Queen and Prince." The
Lorraine correspondence is given at length in the Clanricarde Memoirs
(1757). Appendix.
Meanwhile, in Dublin, Colonel Michael Jones, the Parliamentary governor
of the city, in trying to drive off Preston, had received a severe check
outside Dublin by the enemy forces, and had to call out the garrisons
of Dundalk and Drogheda to his assistance. On August 8, 1647, the united
army fell upon Preston's forces at Dangan Hill, and completely routed
them. Four months later Inchiquin defeated Taaffe's Irish army after a
fierce fight at Knocknanuss, near Mallow. Muskerry laid down his arms
and was succeeded by Taaffe, who carried on the guerilla war in Munster;
and the Nuncio, leaving behind him a trail of interdicted towns, retired
to Galway.
The following months saw rapid changes. The restless Inchiquin in April
1648 suddenly changed sides again and declared for the King. Preston and
the Scots showed a disposition to do the same; and the long negotiations
to induce the Prince of Wales to come over from Paris having broken down,
Inchiquin took the lead in inviting Ormonde to return in order to bring
about another Peace. In October Ormonde landed in Cork, and the final
Peace of January 1648-49 was carried through.[9] The Nuncio felt that
"Hell was working with all its powers," some of the bishops
and many monks, as also especially the Jesuits, having declared against
him and defied his spiritual censures. The Nuncio's political career in
Ireland was at an end, and he himself recognized that his authority was
gone. He felt that he "had dug in the sand," lor all orders
of persons considered the free communication with heretics, which he had
laboured to prevent, as perfectly allowable. They willingly obeyed a Protestant
Viceroy and they longed for the arrival of a Protestant Prince. Their
devotion to the King he could not comprehend. "Nothing is treated
of, nothing concluded, without introducing this question of fealty to
the King," he complains, and on this point the Ulstermen of Owen
Roe did not differ from the rest.[10] Rinuccini had from the first felt
himself to be "the unbidden guest," whose aims and methods were
alike opposed to those of the country to which he had come. When Scarampi
had announced his appointment the Council had bluntly replied that "it
was not a Nuncio they had asked for, but for money," and that they
cared nothing for the one, but a great deal for the other. The working
tolerance with each other at which Irishmen of all creeds, at least in
the south, have managed to arrive when left to themselves was beyond the
comprehension of the Latin mind, trained in a fixed line of conduct and
rigorous adhesion to its own form of belief. "Nephew," Owen
Roe had said, "I hold him to be no better than a devil who will make
these distinctions, but call all Irish alike." The Nuncio had not
been a success; and he returned to Rome only to face a rebuke from the
Pope he had served. Ireland saw the Nuncio depart from Galway just as
"the thunderbolt of Ormonde's arrival" fell upon the coast of
Cork.[11]
[9] The Articles of the 1648 Peace are printed in Borlase, History of
the Rebellion, pp. 205-206.
[10] Rinuccini, Embassy, pp. 259-260; 543.
[11] Rinuccini, Embassy, p. 540; and see the Nuncio's report of his mission
to Ireland, ibid., pp. 485-545.
Hardly had the Ormonde Peace been proclaimed in Dublin on January 17,
1648-49, than the news of the King's execution on January 30 reached Ireland;
on the same day the Viceroy proclaimed the accession of Charles II from
his house at Carrick. In the south there was a general agreement between
the Viceroy, Inchiquin, and the Supreme Council; but in the north Owen
Roe stood out against the Peace, though Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns,
warned Ormonde that if it were not speedily made ten thousand souls would
be starved before the end of June. Plague was raging in the south, and
O'Neill when invited to Munster had replied that he had "come to
fight against men, not against God." The Supreme Council proposed
to deprive Owen of his title of General, and gradually he found himself
standing alone. He was forced to the humiliating expedient of treating
with Sir Charles Coote, the Raven's son, "a bad crow from a bad egg,"
as John Lynch calls him,[12] and finally with Monk, for supplies and arms
to be used against his own countrymen. Ormonde, who was besieging Dublin,
sent Daniel O'Neill, his nephew, to offer him terms, but these he refused.
His army was still formidable, but his influence, except among the old
Irish and clerical party, was on the wane, and his chief support failed
with the departure of the Nuncio.
[12] Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, iii, 93-97, where the horrible cruelties
of this brutal officer are detailed ; also Gilbert, History of the Irish
Confederation, vol. i pp. xxxii-xxxiv.
"The eternal enmity between Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogha," i.e.,
between Ulster and Munster, broke out with fresh violence, the Southerners
protesting that "they wanted no Ulster men in Munster."[13]
They proclaimed Owen Roe O'Neill a traitor, and Preston did all that lay
in his power to harass him. Amid a feeling of intense anxiety throughout
the kingdom, Owen cooped up the forces of Clanricarde and Inchiquin on
the Shannon, and all looked to see the extermination of the army he seemed
to hold within his grasp. But he let slip the chance. Inchiquin marched
out without loss, O'Neill refusing to fight him, and henceforth his policy,
if policy it can be called, was a Fabian system of waiting tactics which
led to no result. Clanricarde declared that "it was easy to see that
the Deity was not on the side of O'Neill."[14] It is probable that
the real explanation of what looked like supineness was O'Neill's fast-failing
health. Accustomed to the military discipline of the Spanish armies and
the comparative well-being of an officer of rank, he, like numbers of
English and foreign military men, felt the climate and the hardships of
life in Ireland tell heavily on his strength. So long before as 1644,
he had had to get out of bed to lead his army at a critical moment, and
he had long been spoken of as "the old soldier O'Neill." Those
desertions and jealousies which had broken Lord Gormanston's heart must
have deeply affected him, and the sense that he was warring against his
own countrymen, and not against any foreign foe, must have neutralized
his efforts. To find himself, as the champion of the Catholic and old
Irish cause, with only Coote and Monk, an English Puritan and a Scottish
Presbyterian, for allies, and to know himself denounced as a traitor by
his own countrymen, must have been a deep humiliation, and he probably
felt little heart to attack Irish Catholic armies, whether under a Catholic
like Clanricarde or a Protestant like Ormonde, both of them monarchists
like himself.
[13] Rinucinni, Embassy, p. 532 and cf. 352-353.
[14] Rinuccini, Embassy, p. 538.
It was at this moment of general depression that the news came that Ormonde's
large army of seven thousand foot and four thousand horse had sustained
an irreparable defeat before Dublin, where he had drawn up his forces
to try and dislodge Colonel Michael Jones, the Parliamentarian governor
into whose hands he had delivered up the city on his flight from Ireland,
or to starve him out. This latter attempt had been rendered impossible
by the arrival of a strong contingent of troops and officers with provisions,
who landed in the bay from England just as Ormonde's army encamped at
Rathmines, outside Dublin. The newcomers wore the red coats of the New
Model army, and were commanded by Colonels Venables, Moore, and Huncks.
Ormonde was in good spirits, for Inchiquin, who had now rejoined him,
had taken Drogheda and forced Monk to surrender Dundalk, besides capturing
the supplies of ammunition and food going north to Owen Roe's army. He
was persuaded by his officers that the old castle of Baggotrath, which
overlooked a meadow between Trinity College and Ringsend on which the
Parliamentarian horse grazed, could be repaired and utilized, and he detached
a party under Major-General Purcell to carry out the necessary works.
Whether by treachery or carelessness, the party was misled and the work
was not done. Early in the dawn Ormonde, who had passed the night writing
dispatches and had just lain down to rest, received tidings in his camp
at Rathmines that his force left at Baggotrath had been beaten off and
the castle captured. The distance between the two portions of his army
made juncture difficult; his men refused to stand, and a rout ensued,
leaving Jones completely master of the field. The rout was complete; over
two thousand were taken prisoners and four thousand slain on that fatal
August 2,1649.[15]
[15] Carte, Ormond, iii, 466-471.
Owen Roe, shamed at last into action, ordered part of his army to hasten
to the help of the beaten Sou herners. But his own day was done. Grievously
ill, the old officer had to descend from his horse and be carried in a
litter as far as Ballyhags in County Cavan. Growing worse, he was forced
to turn aside at Cloghoughter, where he lingered till November 6, long
enough to hear of the sack of Drogheda and he torming of Wexford by Cromwell,
and to see his native land bowing like a rush beneath the tread of Puritan
armies. He was buried at the old abbey at Cavan, the last of the Irish
chiefs to distinguish himself in the Irish cause. In his last letter to
Ormonde he writes--and the accents of truth are in the words--"My
resolution, ways, and intention in these unhappy wars tended to no particular
ambition or private interest of my own...but truly and sincerely to the
preservation of my religion, the advancement of his Majesty's service,
and the just liberties of this nation."[16] Owen Roe had long been
marked for death, and it is not necessary to take too seriously the brag
of an English officer that the old general had been put out of the world
by a pair of poisoned russet boots sent him by one of the Plunketts of
County Louth.[17] All public men carried their lives in their hands, and
threats and stories of assassination were common. Ormonde had several
times been threatened. O'Neill could not long have survived, in any case,
for the disappointments and anxieties of his later life had worn him down.
He was spared the news of the final overthrow of the Irish army at Letterkenny,
where Coote took a savage revenge on the remaining leaders of the old
Irish party. Owen Roe was esteemed a good leader of men even by his opponents;
but to comrades and foes alike he was something of an enigma.
[16] Gilbert, Contemporary History, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 315.
[17] Another story was put out that he had been poisoned by Sir Charles
Coote.
Even to his nephew, Daniel O'Neill, Owen Roe was "a subtle man, beyond
my sounding," "a man of few words," "a great adept
at concealing his feelings, and phlegmatic in his operations." He
was as unlike the rash, boastful, easily-angered Preston as was possible.
Of all the strange figures who played their part in the confused history
of the period this Daniel, nephew of Owen Roe, was one of the most interesting.
Though he was of the old Irish by birth and descent, he was a devoted
loyalist and Lieutenant-General of the Horse to Prince Rupert. He was
the friend of Ormonde and confidant of the Queen, and he went on many
embassies for the Royal Family. He was educated under Archbishop Laud
in Church of England tenets, and he declined the post of General of the
Ulster forces on his uncle's death, because he refused to change his religion.
He moved among all the Courts of the day as the companion of notable personages,
marking out for himself an independent and erratic path. At home and abroad
this active, earnest man is found trying to make peace between contending
parties, now at Oxford with the King, again at Paris with the Queen, or
at home in Ireland posting with terms of settlement between Ormonde and
O'Neill. Well liked by all, trusted by every one, a man of the world,
"a great discerner and observer of men's nature and humours,"
as Clarendon says of him, Daniel was known among the Royalists as "Infallible
Subtle." His refusal to take his uncle's post brought the old Irish
party to an end; politically the party maybe said to have ceased to exist.
Ormonde escaped from the stricken field of Rathmines by putting spurs
to his horse and riding hard to Kilkenny to try to reorganize the army.
The disposition of his troops in Dublin, scattered, as they were, over
different parts of the town and suburbs, and without means of communication,
shows the worst generalship on Ormonde's part. Taken together with his
refusal to send aid to Drogheda when Cromwell attacked that city a month
later, although his troops lay idle in the near neighbourhood, it is difficult
to acquit him of deliberately playing into the hands of the Puritan party.
To another than the victor the news brought relief. Oliver Cromwell received
the tidings at Milford Haven, where he had arrived on his way to Ireland.
He writes: "This is an astounding mercy, so great and seasonable
that indeed we are like them that dreamed." The defeat of Ormonde
cleared the way for Cromwell.
END OF CHAPTER VI
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